I will be reflecting on my experience with Ms. Garcia's fifth grade class at Palm Springs North Elementary. Ms. Garcia is responsible for teaching math and science to two different classes. She has her homeroom class in the morning and after lunch they switch over to Mrs. Gonzalez's language arts and social studies class and she gets Ms. Gonzalez's homeroom class. In the morning Ms. Garcia was distracted on the computer therefore, she was not at the door to greet students or parents as they entered the classroom. Still once students walked into class they were familiar with their routines and went straight to starting their day. They were all mainly working on pulling out last night’s homework and talking amongst each other. Once Ms. Garcia was ready to begin class she did not really have a transition for the students, she just began to speak over them. This method was very unsuccessful because as she was going over the homework only half the class was paying any attention. Eventually the students were talking over Ms. Garcia and she raised her voice for everyone to please be quiet and the class settled. A student then asked for help on a question and here you got see some of Ms. Garcia's more effective teaching methods. She began to explain the first step to the students question and once it came to the second step she said, "Now I want one's to teach two's the next step, do not begin until I say". Then she clapped three times the students clapped back and began helping each other. Then after a minute she said, “Switch for the next step”, and the number two’s began to explain the number ones. Then she said “Ok class” and the students were quiet and focused on her. They all went over the question together and agreed on the same answer. The students were very engaged with one another and knew exactly who their partners were and the exercise ran very smoothly. Ms. Garcia had a lot of these simple strategies spread out through class. It seems that Ms. Garcia has instilled transitions and routine well into the classroom but was just having an off morning to start the day. As she continued with her lessons you could tell that Ms. Garcia really knew her students. From the small amount of time I spent observing the class and the teacher just about anyone can easily pick up on the great connections she has made. Ms. Garcia's class was well engaged in their lessons because she attended to their differences. In the moments some students lost focus Ms. Garcia would attend to those students with patience. You can tell that she treated each child as an individual and was familiar with their habits. A perfect example was when she had all the children working on an assignment and a student suddenly put his head down and stopped working completely. As soon as Ms. Garcia realized this she pulled the child aside and said to him, “Robert, remember what you promised? Next time the work was too hard you would not stop trying, you would come to me for help’”. This really showed me that there is always a reason for misbehavior. Instead of assuming and punishing the student for not doing his work Ms. Garcia had learned Roberts’s habit. Now that she knows he is acting out because he is giving up she can address the issue in a way that will maximize learning for Robert.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Blog One
I will be reflecting on my experience with Ms. Garcia's fifth grade class at Palm Springs North Elementary. Ms. Garcia is responsible for teaching math and science to two different classes. She has her homeroom class in the morning and after lunch they switch over to Mrs. Gonzalez's language arts and social studies class and she gets Ms. Gonzalez's homeroom class. In the morning Ms. Garcia was distracted on the computer therefore, she was not at the door to greet students or parents as they entered the classroom. Still once students walked into class they were familiar with their routines and went straight to starting their day. They were all mainly working on pulling out last night’s homework and talking amongst each other. Once Ms. Garcia was ready to begin class she did not really have a transition for the students, she just began to speak over them. This method was very unsuccessful because as she was going over the homework only half the class was paying any attention. Eventually the students were talking over Ms. Garcia and she raised her voice for everyone to please be quiet and the class settled. A student then asked for help on a question and here you got see some of Ms. Garcia's more effective teaching methods. She began to explain the first step to the students question and once it came to the second step she said, "Now I want one's to teach two's the next step, do not begin until I say". Then she clapped three times the students clapped back and began helping each other. Then after a minute she said, “Switch for the next step”, and the number two’s began to explain the number ones. Then she said “Ok class” and the students were quiet and focused on her. They all went over the question together and agreed on the same answer. The students were very engaged with one another and knew exactly who their partners were and the exercise ran very smoothly. Ms. Garcia had a lot of these simple strategies spread out through class. It seems that Ms. Garcia has instilled transitions and routine well into the classroom but was just having an off morning to start the day. As she continued with her lessons you could tell that Ms. Garcia really knew her students. From the small amount of time I spent observing the class and the teacher just about anyone can easily pick up on the great connections she has made. Ms. Garcia's class was well engaged in their lessons because she attended to their differences. In the moments some students lost focus Ms. Garcia would attend to those students with patience. You can tell that she treated each child as an individual and was familiar with their habits. A perfect example was when she had all the children working on an assignment and a student suddenly put his head down and stopped working completely. As soon as Ms. Garcia realized this she pulled the child aside and said to him, “Robert, remember what you promised? Next time the work was too hard you would not stop trying, you would come to me for help’”. This really showed me that there is always a reason for misbehavior. Instead of assuming and punishing the student for not doing his work Ms. Garcia had learned Roberts’s habit. Now that she knows he is acting out because he is giving up she can address the issue in a way that will maximize learning for Robert.
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I think that it is interesting to see the transition of the teacher from the beginning of the lesson to the end of the lesson. In the beginning, she was uninterested in the students and wasn't paying attention to them. However, in the end, she was attentive to the students and was caring and kind. I liked the clap technique that she used in the lesson in order to get the students' attention. I also think that the teacher dealt with the students misbehavior really well. She was very understanding and proved that she knew the student enough to know how to deal with it.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your attention to detail and your ability to provide us with context. Please continue to do this as it makes it so much easier for us to follow your experience. I am particularly interested in how Ms. Garcia knows why Robert disengages and at her ability to recognize it immediately. I would love to explore, however, some other strategies she could use to help Robert work on the more difficult tasks. I would think that Robert might need to be assigned to work with a student who has strong math skills is some form of cooperative grouping assignment. It would also be interesting to note if Ms. Garcia has implemented any self-determination strategies. I think it would be interesting to focus on Robert for you next post and observe him using more of a case study approach. I will give you more information on that via email Friday. :)
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